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A while back (2006, most likely), I purchased several D-link Vonage locked ATAs, with the intention to try VOIP. They were cheap ($9.99) and figured that if I find that I do not like Vonage, I will unlock them somehow and use them with another provider. Though I have decided that I do not like Vonage, I was unable to unlock and abandoned the project. Now that I have a working VOIP setup, I decided to give unlocking one more try.

These VTA units are mostly known under their “unbranded” name, i.e., VTA-VR. “CV” means that they were localized to Canada for Vonage. The Vonage UK version is VTA-UV. Mine is a H/W Ver.: A5 with F/W.: 1.00.07. Upon logging in, (172), I find that the actual firmware was 1.00.08 – this may have been from previous unlocking attempts. I have only one of them left, as I have given the rest away after wasting what seemed like far too long trying to unlock. An outdated version of a guide to unlock can be found on scribd (link below).

There is plenty of information online on how to unlock the unit, but most of it is outdated, at least for mine.

unlocking

I decided to use 2 computers to achieve this objective. First, I downloaded all the necessary files to my laptop (see links below). Then I set my laptop with a fixed IP, turned wireless and firewall off, and connected it to a switch. All attempts to unlock the unit were made with the VTA connected to the switch. Obviously, first I had to login user/user with the VTA connected to my router and then make set it as a Fixed IP. One thing I have noticed with this device is that you need to be extremely patient – flashing and rebooting can take 1-2 minutes and sometimes more, though the actual unlocking is very fast. It helps if you do something in parallel.

Though on the box it said that the unit had the .07 firmware, when logging in it turned out to be .08. The first attempt to unlock was unsuccessful with most cyt versions. It seemed that I needed to downgrade to the .07 firmware, which was easily unlockable. To do that, one has to login with the Support/user account. Unfortunately, Support did not take that password nor the blank. After some scouring message boards, I learned that the password was tivonpw. Once logged in with that password, I downgraded to the 07 F/W, downloaded straight from Vonage website (link below). With this firmware, cyt46.exe DLINK worked immediately, reporting success. I was then able to login with Admin/Admin.

Others were able to login with Support after first going user/user then jumping to this URL:

If things go bad, I find that I can reset by holding the reset button, then connect and disconnect power, then keep holding reset for 10-20s.

post-unlock

The first thing I’ve done in the Admin tab was to change the Provisioning Profile Base URL from current to my computer’s IP, erased Provisioning file path and left Polling Interval to 30 and Image Download Interval to 120.

After unlocking, some people have suggested upgrading to toro’s 09 firmware, which would presumably allow configuring via the web interface. This interface might be buggy, otherwise I don’t understand why is everybody using tftpd to configure with xml files.

I then changed from Static IP to Dynamic and connected it to my router, freeing my laptop to go back to the router as well (with Dynamic IP).

Some caveats as reported by users (YMMV):

Certain characters in the username don’t get sent (‘_’, ‘e’, ‘f’, ‘g’ etc – any character after ‘e’).

REG_EXPIRE_TIMER setting, when set to 3600, resulted in 1 min registration. However, when set to 6000000 it resulted in 1h registration.

Time is 4h ahead (timezone should be set to GMT-5 for EST)

If using 2 lines, they compete for the same port – must change ports in config

To provision an XML file which you can google, run tftpd and point it to the directory where tiMAC.xml resides

Apparently, you can only set Line1 through the web interface; Line2 must be set through XML files

toro has confirmed the timezone problem in his 1.09 firmware:

The ntp server is set to pool.ntp.org, but the timezone settings don't seem to work. The time is always set according to GMT. I tried to add a couple fields to set the NTP and timezone but they don't seem to work.

This might mean that the CallerID timestamps will be off by a few hours, unless you live in England .

Tips

I thought you might find the following bits of forum wisdom useful:

vBuzzer

It must start with abcd then chose two numeric digits xx (0 - 9). So for example, you can have abcd01, abcd10 to abcd99.

When entering your CID_NAME and AUTH_USER_NAME in the XML file, you will need to but the same vBuzzer ID.

The DLINK adapter is not the most configurable. The Dial Map is not as flexible so you can use substitution. You will have to dial like the vBuzzer phone software, That means you have to dial the 11 digits phone number (i.e. 1-416-984-4567) to even dial a 416 number.

Does anyone know if the serial port is enabled and the pin out?

The serial is enabled by default. Here is my list of serial pin-outs for a few devices, just for anyone who wants it: For all the pinouts below, Pin 1 is the left-most pin if you are facing the front of the device. DLINK VTA-VR pin 1 ... rcv pin 2 ... GND pin 3 ... 3.3v pin 4 ... n/c (Pin Missing) pin 5 ... xmt 38400 baud. (8,N,1-Hardware)

Other instructions (virgin-unlock) reverse pin1 with pin5

quick permanent unlock

on a virgin D-Link VTA adapter which has never seen a firmware higher than the original 11.4.0-r060331-1.00.07-r060418, you can delete the CRYPT_KEY, HASH_DIR and ADMIN_PWD env variables right from the PSPBoot prompt, using

unsetenv CRYPT_KEY

unsetenv HASH_DIR

unsetenv ADMIN_PWD

unsetenv CRYPT_KEY unsetenv HASH_DIR unsetenv ADMIN_PWD This will prevent it forever from provisioning itself from Vonage and allow you to load higher firmware versions without the fear of getting it re-locked.

This works only in H/W A5, not in A4.

I haven’t tried yet to change the settings, but I don’t expect problems. As for provisioning, cyt_46 comes with some example XMLs that can be easily modified.